Nondestructive inspection (NDI) of a structure involves thoroughly examining the structure without harming it or significantly disassembling it. Nondestructive inspection is commonly used in the aircraft industry to validate the health (e.g., integrity and fitness) of aircraft structures.
It would be desirable to perform NDI on composite fuselage stiffeners of new composite aircraft. If, for instance, a cargo vehicle bumps into a fuselage or some other impact to a fuselage occurs, information about the structural health of the fuselage stiffeners would be valuable. However, performing NDI such as ultrasonic testing on a large number of composite fuselage stiffeners would be time-consuming and costly.